UPDATE: FEDERAL JUDGE FINES VA FOR SHREDDING CRITICAL DOCUMENTS ... IN 1987 (Not Blue Water Navy)

VA WatchDog dot Org ^ | Oct 20, 2008 | Larry Scott

[Right Winged American]

UPDATE: FEDERAL JUDGE FINES VA FOR SHREDDING CRITICAL DOCUMENTS ... IN 1987

VA's decades-long history of document destruction and falsified performance reports comes back to haunt

by Larry Scott
(research by Eric)

The story in The New York Times was headlined:  V.A. Is Fined For Purging Files In Radiation Case.  The date was January 11, 1987.  Article is here... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=9B0DE6DD1039F932A25752C0A961948260&scp=4
&sq=Shredder%20Veterans%20records&st=cse

In part, the article explains the ruling: 

The Veterans Administration must pay an estimated $115,000 in penalties for trying to purge its files of potentially embarrassing documents, a Federal judge in San Francisco ruled last week. The agency had been ordered to supply the documents to a group representing 5,000 veterans who were exposed to radiation in Japan after World War II and in postwar tests of nuclear bombs.

Federal District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said a court overseer would be assigned to halt any further destruction of records. The Justice Department said it would investigate the judge's assertion that V.A. officials might have obstructed justice by harassing employees who testified about the document shredding.

Does any of this sound familiar?  Fast forward 21 years.  Today, the Veterans' Benefits Administration (VBA) of the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) has once again been caught with documents critical to veterans' claims in shredder bins at four Regional Offices (VAROs).  Full background on this can be found here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/VAshredderscandal.htm

The documents were found by investigators from the VA's Office of Inspector General (VAOIG).  The VAOIG had been conducting investigations at a number of VAROs, including looking at "timeliness" issues.  This is how the VAROs handle incoming documents including veterans' claims, evidence in support of a claim and other paperwork critical to the claim process.  VAOIG wanted to know how the paperwork was logged-in, date/time stamped and then moved to the proper file for further processing of the claim.

Veterans have long complained that VAROs do not properly log-in paperwork, misplace it, misfile it, lose it, or, perhaps, destroy it in an attempt to lighten the work load, deny claims, and generally to look like they are productive.

To get an idea of how the problem of missing, or destroyed, documents can hang up the claim process, go to the VBA's web site and search under Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA) Decisions.  Putting in the search parameter "missing records," you will get 36,032 hits.  Search query is...
http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/va_search.js
p?QT=%22missing+records%22&SQ=vt_vetap
pall_ext&RPP=10&UA=Search

Sampling the text of the first 23 cases, we find that every one contained allegations that the VARO had either lost or shredded records, or failed to obtain required medical records for the veteran.  In 20 of the 23 sampled cases, the BVA remanded the case with wording critical of the VARO's handling of the veteran's file.  No charges were pressed or administrative action taken.

You will also find 47,181 hits for "lost records,"  35,954 hits for "removed records," 19,692 hits for "altered records," and, not surprisingly, 19,759 hits for "destroyed records."  Adding these together we find that  29% of all veterans' appeals at the BVA could involve spoliation (withholding, hiding, or destruction) of evidence.

Missing documents and "timeliness" issues appeared to come together during the week of October 6, 2008, as four top managers at the New York VARO were relieved of their duties ostensibly for faking "timeliness" reports to the VA's Central Office (VACO).  The fudged figures would make the managers, and the VARO as a whole, appear to be operating more efficiently than they really were.  There were also allegations of document destruction.  VAOIG is investigating.

Now it's time to rewind, to find once again, that what happened at the New York VARO is just more old news.  It's August 21, 1988.  In The New York Times the article is headlined:  Veterans Administration Criticized for Errors.  Article is here... http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.ht
ml?res=940DE2DD1231F932A1575BC0A96E948260&s
cp=1&sq=%22August%2021,%201988%22%20V
eterans%20Affairs&st=cse

In part, the article says:

A Congressional committee has charged that the Veterans Administration ... has been unfair to thousands of veterans and has concealed its own findings of ''error and bias.''

The House Government Operations Committee report contains some of the harshest criticism ever leveled at the agency.....

The report, which was approved by the committee this week, specifically accuses top managers of the Veterans Administration's compensation and pension service of repeatedly publishing ''inaccurate and misleading'' data that underreport mistakes made in processing veterans' benefits claims. The report said that agency officials were ''trying to make themselves look good.''......

The report also quoted a finding in an internal V.A. task force paper in 1987 that declared the agency's error scanning system was subject to ''inherent biases'' due, in part, to production quotas for V.A. claims processors.

Despite three separate agency studies disclosing error reporting problems, the report said, ''the V.A. has chosen to dispute or ignore its own internal findings and to continue supplying false information to the Congress and its own constituency.''

Fast forward again.  Here we are with the same-old, same-old after more than two decades.  Actually, much longer than that.  A quick review of the archives at The New York Times pulls up articles of a similar nature going back to at least 1933.  It must be a tradition of some sort.

The issues of "timeliness" and destruction of documents cannot be underplayed.  This is not a small story because there is no acceptable level for this type behavior.  Veterans are not just a piece of paper to be moved from someone's desk to a shredder.  (Commentary on this here... http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfoct08/nf101908-1.htm )  Veterans cannot accept the old "Delay, Deny and Hope that I Die," slogan any longer.  (More on that here... http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfoct08/nf101508-1.htm )

Even the most casual observer would have to admit that what we have here is a pattern of incompetence, deceit and criminal conduct on the part of the VBA.

It's time for the VA hierarchy to demand that their underlings at the VBA throw up their hands and say, "OK.  We did it."

Or, better yet, put their hands behind their backs, accept the cuffs, and do the "perp walk" for the network TV cameras.

[Right Winged American]

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Blue Water Navy
Vietnam Veterans
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NOTE: THIS SERIES OF STORIES APPLIES TO ALL VETERANS OF ALL SERVICES WHENEVER YOU SERVED!

If you have or had a claim submitted to the Veterans Administration for anything, anytime this may have happened to you.

HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF IT HAS?

GOOD QUESTION.

And now this, (Just to let you know how long this has been going on ...)

[Right Winged American]

Yup, this has legs.

Note, story is from '87, for christ's sake!

[dman4384]

SO the Federal government fined itself.

Once agency prints up a check and the other agency cashes it.

No doubt that agency that printed up the check, will request extra funds next budget cycle to make up for the shortfall.

End result is that spending increases by the amount of the fine.